A three-day to Taiwan by American Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach ended yesterday, though not without some controversy...
The KMT unexpectedly reversed course on plans to conduct a cross-strait forum with the CCP earlier this week, citing anger over news reports from Chinese state-run media as the reason for doing so...
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed a new design for the Taiwanese passport on Wednesday. The new passport design was unveiled under the auspices of preventing confusion between Taiwan and China, a particularly salient issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tsai administration cited cases of Taiwanese travelers being mistaken for Chinese travelers in the course of the pandemic—due to the words “Republic of China” on the passport—to justify the change...
The Tsai administration surprised last week, with the announcement that it intended to open Taiwan up to beef and pork imports from America. The move is one which is clearly aimed at removing one of the major political hurdles to a bilateral trade agreement with the US, the US having made this into a precondition of a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan for well over a decade...
A dispute regarding COVID-19 testing recently broke out between the Changhua county government, and the Centers for Disease Control, the national body under the Ministry of Health and Welfare that coordinates Taiwan’s fight against COVID-19...
Plans for Taiwan to set up a representative office in Somaliland and, in turn, for Somaliland to set up a representative office in Taiwan have continued apace, despite pressure from China and Somalia. Taiwan’s representative office in Somaliland opened earlier this week, while Somaliland’s first representative to Taiwan, Mohamed Omar Hagi Mohamoud, arrived earlier this month...
It took few by surprise that Chen Chi-mai of the DPP was the winner of the Kaohsiung mayoral by-election today. Chen won by large margins, winning 70% of the vote, and defeating KMT candidate Jane Lee and TPP candidate Wu Yi-jheng. The by-election was the first by-election to replace a mayor who had been recalled from office in Taiwanese history...
American Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar ended a four-day visit to Taiwan today, visiting the Taipei Guest House to pay his respects to recently deceased former president Lee Teng-hui before returning to America on a flight scheduled for the afternoon...
Comments by Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je at the TPP's first national congress last week are telling about the current political orientation of the party, as well as the challenges it faces going forward. Ko raised eyebrows by calling for a ‘Silent Revolution” in Taiwanese politics at the party congress, a pointed criticism of the Tsai administration indicative of the party’s pan-Blue leanings. At the same time, Ko did not lean as heavily into pan-Blue rhetoric as much as he did during the TPP’s founding one year ago...
More troubles are ahead for the NPP, with the departure of the party’s two Taipei city councilors in the wake of corruption allegations against former party chair and legislator Hsu Yung-ming that emerged earlier this month...